Sempstress

There seems to be some confusion these days as to where waists are located.  Taking a waist measurement at the proper place is a crucial step in pattern making, especially for historical periods that emphasized the waist as a central point of the feminine silhouette.  We’re going to talk about the right way to take a waist measurement, as well as some “cheats” for specific body shape issues. Read the rest of this entry »

The bust measurement is probably the most important measurement when it comes to making any torso garment fit a woman.  Whether you’re making a sixteenth century corset, a modern jacket, or a 1960s trapeze dress, if it doesn’t fit correctly at the bust, it doesn’t fit.  How do you get the right measurement? Read the rest of this entry »

After years and years of showing the entire internet how to draft patterns to my measurements-du-jour, I’ve decided to start working with a model.  There’s a couple reasons…  Firstly, I already have more costumes than I possibly know what to do with.  I have so many that I’m trying to come up with ways to get rid of them, without actually taking the huge, ego-wrenching risk of putting things on ebay and finding out that my treasured work is not worth a 25$ bid.   Read the rest of this entry »

Just for something completely different, I’ve been working on redoing the bathroom.  (Well, no, technically I did it because mom told me to.)  So what happens when your friendly neighborhood sempstress trades in her sewing machine and scissors for a paint brush and a miter saw?  Here’s what’s been keeping me away from the computer…. Read the rest of this entry »

I just got round to pulling all the pictures off my camera – something I clearly need to do more often, because christmas was still on there….  One of my gifts for my sister was a pair of socks. Read the rest of this entry »

All the hurdles have been jumped and the red tape has been politely rolled into a neat ball, and I’ve finally received my Associate in Applied Science (Fashion Design – Honors) and my Certificate for completing the Fashion Entrepreneurship program (with Honors).   Read the rest of this entry »

So I just realized that I’m getting a whole mass of 404s (ie, the dreaded “File Not Found” error). I don’t know why that was a surprise, since I moved everything last August. I’ve added little redirect-y pagey-poos for the worst offenders. I guess I should have done that last August… Read the rest of this entry »

That’s right! I’m half of the costuming team for Chicago at Wheaton Drama. If you’re close to Chicago (the city) and want to be in Chicago (the musical), here’s the audition info… Read the rest of this entry »

The surviving pattern published in Juan de Alcega’s ‘Libro de Geometria, Practica y Traca’(1589) represents almost everything we know about the farthingale. Most articles on recreating the Alcega farthingale focus on faithfully reproducing the pattern based on fabric widths. Honestly, though, calling this a “pattern” is a bit of an overstatement: the book was more intended as a series of cutting diagrams to help tailors avoid waste. The problem is, Alcega included some rather sharp commentary on on what he considered the proper size for the bottom hoop of the farthingale, but no real information on the size of the intended wearer. Complicating things further, modern bodies aren’t build quite like the popular model of the 16th century. So what’s a costumer to do? How about some trigonometry!

Trust me, this won’t hurt. Read the rest of this entry »

How totally cool is that? I’m using wp e-commerce, and in spite of all the problem reports, it seems to work just fine for my purposes (ye olde digital downloads). Well, at least, it seems to work just fine here. On my little test server (which is my mac, running Apache/mySQL through MAMP) it’s hopelessly cranky and will not produce download links for files purchased. Le sigh. Read the rest of this entry »